Banks agree on ATM payment gateway

HYDERABAD: The 15,000 odd bank ATMs across the country will soon be able to talk to each other to authenticate and route payment details of various e-commerce transactions and e-government activities.

This will be possible because all banks have agreed to join the National Financial Switch Project (NFSP), that will facilitate connectivity between the individual banks and their ATMs and the inter-bank payment gateway being set up by the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT).

The Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) will be the clearing and settlement agency for the switch, which will also facilitate the disaster recovery from its premises at Mumbai.

The new initiative is expected to widen the scope of ATM network sharing and customers of several banks are expected to benefit by this initiative.

The turnkey project, which is expected to widen the scope of ATM network sharing, has been awarded to Euronet to set-up the complete infrastructure, which will be owned by IDRBT, and would be operated and managed from its premises at Hyderabad, the IDRBT said in a release here on Saturday.